District Court Panel

The Utah legislature recently passed House Bill 392. Among other things, House Bill 392 grants the attorney general an unconditional right to intervene in a civil action in the district court upon receiving notice under Rule 24 of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure (URCP) that a party is challenging the constitutionality of a statute in a civil action. In addition, provided certain state entities or state officials are parties in the civil action, the attorney general, the governor, or the legislature may file a notice directing the district court to convene a panel of three district court judges to hear and decide a civil action.

Judges on the panel must be randomly selected and each judge must be from a different judicial district. One of the judges assigned to the panel will be selected as the chief judge of the panel. The panel must sit en banc for a trial, an order for an injunction or temporary restraining order, or any motion that would dispose of the action or any claim or defense in the action. The chief judge of the panel will conduct all other proceedings.

House Bill 392 directed the Judicial Council to establish a list of district court judges qualified to serve on a panel and to create a process to randomly select district court judges to sit on the panel.

The legislature also passed Senate Joint Resolution 5, which amends Rules 1, 42, 63, and 63A of the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure, adding procedures related to three-judge panels.

All district court judges are qualified to serve on a three-judge panel convened in accordance with House Bill 392 (Utah Code section 78A-5-102.7) and the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure. District court judges will be removed from the list of qualified judges (“Panel List”) during periods of disability or administrative leave. District court judges who have announced their retirement will also be removed from the Panel List six months prior to the retirement date, but must remain on any existing three-judge panel to which they have been appointed until the case is resolved or the date of retirement, whichever is earlier. Provided 50% of the judges from each district remain on the Panel List, district court judges actively sitting on a panel may be removed from the Panel List while the case is pending.

Rule 4-102 of the Utah Code of Judicial Administration requires that three-judge panel assignments be made on a random basis using an automated case assignment process.

Automated process

To assign judges to a three-judge panel (“Panel”), the Judicial Council has established a computer-generated random selection process using the Panel List. For each panel assignment, all qualified judges are placed into a single selection pool. One judge is selected through a computer-generated random draw.

Immediately upon the first selection, all other judges from the selected judge’s judicial district are removed from the remaining pool to ensure that no more than one judge from the same district may serve on the Panel. A second judge is then selected through the same computer-generated random draw from the updated pool, and the same district-based removal occurs. This process continues until three judges have been selected, each from a different judicial district.

If a selected judge is later disqualified, recuses, or is replaced as a matter of right, the vacancy is filled using the same computer-generated random selection process, applied in a manner that preserves the requirement that the Panel consist of judges from three different judicial districts.